EDUCATION Secretary Leonor M. Briones said she plans on making the Alternative Learning System (ALS) accessible to those in drug-rehabilitation centers now that the budget of the Department of Education (DepEd) has increased to P571 billion, up 33 percent, from the P430 billion given the DepEd the previous year.
“We already asked the Philippine National Police for the breakdown because we already have our own total,” Briones said in a press briefing. She, however, refused to give the number of drug surrenderees the DepEd is targeting to reach via the ALS.
“Tingnan mo lang. Ang dami talagang mga bata na hindi nakapag-aral. They have to be classified. Kailangang mag-census at makikita kung ano’ng level, ano’ng skills ang kailangan nila,” she said. “President Duterte has approved the budget allocation of the DepEd amounting to P571 billion” and that ALS is one of the priorities of the present administration.
“Strengthening the ALS, which has been my own personal advocacy since 2006, is a priority. We have realized that ALS, as part of the rationalization of the earlier program, was merged with another bureau. Therefore, the program did not receive the attention it should have received. So that one sentence about ALS [during the State of the Nation of President Duterte] is very meaningful. It will have equal attention as formal-education. Many young people, as well as many adults, have not been captured by the formal-education system.”
Briones said the DepEd created the position of assistant secretary just for ALS in the person of GH Ambat. “This important program, seeking to reintegrate out-of-school youths [OSYs] or basic-education dropouts in the school system, has seen almost 600,000 passers of the Accreditation and Equivalency [A&E] Program. All of them were certified as eligible for either high school or higher education,” she said.
She added that the DepEd will also bring ALS to those OSYs in geographically challenging locations, and for those who are illegal migrants and do not have access to formal education.
Briones also said the DepEd is looking to enrich basic education by strengthening the “drug component in science and health, reinforcing lessons on gender and equity in sex education, and emphasizing environment and
disaster-risk reduction awareness.” Briones sees this number as meager against the number of learners who are eligible or who have potential for ALS. She wants to enhance the complementary relationship between private- and public-education institutions by encouraging dialogue, collaboration in pedagogy and learning methods and faculty exchange.
Briones sees that by 2022, the end of her term as secretary, these education reforms will have been fully implemented, enriched, enhanced and expanded. The emphasis is on institutionalizing effective governance, financial management, delivery systems and monitoring mechanisms.